Overheating laptop saga.

[Hells Bells]

My laptop (HP, 2 years old) began to overheat a couple of weeks ago. Compressed air in the vents, hoovered, still overheated. It didn't seem to be malware, viruses or anything untoward. I got a couple of blue screens so decided to reinstall Vista using the recovery disks I created when it was new. I backed everything up to an external drive, and inserted the DVD. 'Recovery Manager error 1002 ' contact HP for further information. No problem say HP, use the recovery partition on the laptop instead. Same error. So now there is no operating system on my laptop. I burned Ubuntu to a DVD,used it from the DVD drive, and it started up and was doing fine, although still overheating. I couldn't get Ubuntu to detect the wifi though, and turned it off to do some other things. However today it just briefly starts for a few seconds then dies. Any suggestions, local PC repair is closed this afternoon.

[Hells Bells]

Solved the dying thing, RAM was loose, uncertain how, as it hasn't been touched.

[la vache!]

If you read the forums, HP are notorious for producing laptops which overheat.The fan on mine is always on. With my Sony Vaio, never. I'll never buy another HP.

[KathyG]

Well done Helen! After your OP all I could've suggested was don't start anything too technical on a Friday! You did more to yours than I could even have thought of doing but good job it's all working now.

[Hells Bells]

Trouble is Friday is my day off. I'm trying to find a copy of Vista from somewhere now. NOt sure I want to go to the expense of buying Windows 7

[Hells Bells]

Hmm , I suspect the fan and heat sink have stopped working completely now. Thing is just continuously turning itself off .

[KathyG]

What you really need to do Helen is buy a Mac!

[Hells Bells]

Katie, I'll be lucky to have the spare dosh to buy a cheap netbook never mind a Mac. A macbook Air is rather nice though.
I can buy Windows 7 for £139.00, but then there's the laptop repair and parts. It may be less expensive to sell the brand new battery and charger. Cost for HP brand replacements was £100 in all, and both were new in the last month. Still have box for charger, but sadly not for the battery.

[KathyG]

It would be worth sticking it on a credit card though Helen, am I right that the Air's largest one is 13"? I've got a MacBook Pro 17" and I really wouldn't be without it, took a bit of getting used to though, quite different to Windows but it never goes wrong, locks up or crashes like all my PCs have done, it boots up really quickly, although it's very rarely turned off.

I'd think you'd still be able to sell the battery on ebay even without a box.

[J B]

Windows 7 is MUCH better than Vista!

And it's costs about half what you said here

http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Software/ca ... -Windows-7

[CSE]

I saw Saga and thought this thread was about a laptop which was over 55.

[vrooje]

If your fan has died, that could easily explain things. On a desktop, they're easily replaced; on a laptop, it may be more labor-intensive.

I'd suggest having a professional do it, as a significant part of laptop cooling often involves contact between metal parts that's aided with little seals that break when you pull them apart to, say, replace a part. If you don't know where they are and how to re-connect the pieces properly, the laptop will just overheat in a different way when you put it back together. It's not always obvious where they are.

Don't really see the point of a MacBook Air. It's pretty, but not worth the extra money, in my opinion.

But if you do manage to fix the laptop and re-install everything, Windows 7 is worth it.

Good luck!

[la vache!]

My OH ordered a fan for his Macbook on line and fitted it himself, but as Brooke saiys, it is probably better to get a pro to do it. Check out the online prices for the fan to make sure you aren't being ripped off.
Windows 7 is great, definitely worth an upgrade from Vista. I haven't had any problems with it and I'm not sorry I didn't get an Macbook Pro for double the price plus all the additional software that would have been needed.

[Hells Bells]

LV, i've already checked out how to replace it, as I wanted to try and access it to clean the old one anyway, and it involves almost complete dismantling, removing everything from keyboard down. I've done it with another laptop, but this one looks a nightmare, so I'm not even attempting it.

[Hells Bells]

Have asked for a couple of quotes to get it repaired for now. Neighbour thinks he has a copy of vista too.